At first glance, hearing that Zynga and Atari are teaming up doesn’t invite the most confidence. Both video game companies are pioneers in their respective fields and rode high on their successes. And like Atari, Zynga is going through its… Continue Reading →

At first glance, hearing that Zynga and Atari are teaming up doesn’t invite the most confidence. Both video game companies are pioneers in their respective fields and rode high on their successes. And like Atari, Zynga is going through its ups and downs.

Atari with Curious Brain is developing Super Bunny Breakout for iOS devices. It’s an update to the classic Breakout, the simple game where players move a platform to bounce a ball and break bricks. To this formula, Atari and Curious Brain add a story, characters and a few twists to the gameplay. The result is a Zynga-published title that’s addicting and has more depth.

It’s also fun.

The levels are fairly elaborate. It’s not just multicolored blocks anymore.

Super Bunny Breakout focuses on a rabbit called Rodney, who is inspired by a superhero on TV. He’s trying to rescue his friends who are captured by E.A.T. (Evil Animal Testing) Labs. That’s done by smashing him — in ball form — into cages and blocks just as you would in the original Breakout.

Playing on the iPad, it was fairly easy and reminded me almost of air hockey. Players can move the platform anywhere on the bottom third of the screen. What’s more, the updated technology lets iOS devices calculate the real physics of the ball. Bounce the ball hard of the platform and it will dart across the screen faster. Hit it at a weird angle and it will move in the corresponding speed and direction that it should. Every ball creature moving on the level has a weight and momentum to it.

This is Sailorben. He’s missing his leg and Rodney has to help him find it. He’s also one of the unlockable characters.

When it comes to how the characters affect the gameplay, they improves the depth. Instead of the three chances to clear the board, Rodney and the five other playable protagonists have a health bar. Each time one of the characters falls through a hole at the bottom of the screen, they lose health. It’s not the end of the world as players go through 48 levels.

They just lose energy from their life bar, but they can regain it through power-ups that fall via broken bricks. They can also switch out one character from up to three others by landing it directly on the platform. Players determine which four of the six they want to bring in to each stage, so there’s a bit of strategy in how they approach a level.

Each one of the characters has a different power that’s activated by double tapping the screen. Rodney’s spread out his fists so he has a wider area of destruction. Another character Blanket can wrap itself in armor so it does more damages to bricks.

Caring for you characters is almost Tamogotchi-like.

Eventually, over the course of the campaign, a character’s health will fall to zero and that removes it from use. Players will have to wait two hours for the energy to regenerate. But they can speed up the process by using the coins they gather in the game and buying biscuits to add health. They can also use the coins to buy items that they can activate during the level. They’re mostly minor power-ups that send rockets down to destroy bricks or reverse gravity to keep balls aloft.

Of course, there is a monetary system tied to this. Players can buy coins by opening up their wallets and using real money. For a price perspective, a biscuit that boosts energy costs about 50 coins, and for 99 cents, players can buy a 1,000 coin pack. That’s not going to break the bank.

As for expansion opportunity, Atari and Zynga are pretty mum. But personally, I can see this game having the opportunity to expand with more levels or characters. The six heroes have some charm to them and I do like how Curious Brain expanded the Breakout formula. In some sense, Super Bunny Breakout has shades of Peggle in it, especially in how players can aim their ball and the overall board design.

Super Bunny Breakout is set to launch soon and will cost 99 cents. There’s also an Android version on the way.

I vaguely remember Centipede. It was an early Atari shooter. You played as a guy on the bottom of the screen and you could only shoot in one direction — up. The computer sent waves of enemies your way and… Continue Reading →

I vaguely remember Centipede. It was an early Atari shooter. You played as a guy on the bottom of the screen and you could only shoot in one direction — up. The computer sent waves of enemies your way and you were expected to blast them. You did this all on a trackball, which was revolutionary at the time.

On the Wii and Nintendo 3DS, the update Centipede: Infestation isn’t nearly as original. Done in an anime style, the game has turned into a twin stick shooter. Players move around a character named Max with the analog stick. The guy is living in a post-apocalyptic world after one of the bombs in Missile Command get through the defense and blast the world to bits. (I like how they tie in the two franchises.) Players aim Max’s guns with the face buttons on the Nintendo 3DS or they move around a cursor on the screen with the Wii.

THE GOOD: It’s bright and colorful and there’s enough content with 35 levels and five boss battles. It went just go on infinitely like the original. There’s also a variety of weapons, which includes the original gun, a flamethrower, a force gun and a toxic sludge gun. Players can even activate sentry turrets that act as a second pair of guns. THey’ll need the firepower to take on additional enemies such as fire ants and beetles. Overall, there’s about 20 bugs in the works. At the end of each stage, you’re also graded on your performance.

THE BAD: Centipede: Infestation looks like it would get repetitive fairly quickly. The level design leaves something to be desired. They aren’t very complicated. They just look like wide-open arenas dressed up with little frills here and there. One stage does have bridges that don’t activate until all the enemies are defeated on a platform, but there doesn’t seem to be anything more complicated.

It’s also pretty difficult. One hit from a bug and your character is dead. The game is unforgiving in that old-school way, and players will be glad for a second-player to help them out. The game supports two-player co-op.

THE CENTIPEDE: The game is called Centipede: Infestation right, and you do fight the monster. It wends its ways through the level, and Max has to shoot its body parts. The last thing he’ll destroy is its head, which will keep coming at him once the rest of its segments is destroyed. The battles are a nod to the classic.